Thursday, December 31, 2009

Sunday’s trip from OK City to Roswell, NM was uneventful, bare and dry roads all the way. We had planned on stopping in northern NM, but decided to push on to Roswell. The trip south from Clovis would have been pretty boring except for driving toward an absolutely spectacular sunset.

Tuesday 12/29

Change of plans. Snow during the night in southwestern NM., an inch or two here in Roswell, but 3 to 5 inches in the mountains between here and Las Cruces. So we decided to sit tight and wait for better weather. Did some shopping and laundry and got a few last minute things put away in the proper places. Trailer Village Campground in Roswell is nice, with cable TV and nice fast WiFi, so this is a good place to wait out the weather. Plan on heading for Arizona on Wednesday.

Wednesday 12/30

Through Las Cruces and into Arizona today. A short stretch of snow covered roads coming over the mountains south of Ruidoso. Stopped in Bowie, AZ for the night. Bowie is a ghost town, a small village that died when the Interstate bypassed the town, A half dozen abandoned motels and restaurants. Campground is small, but OK and has good WiFI!

Thursday 12/31

Stopped in Wilcox, AZ and gave the truck and trailer a quick wash as they were filthy!

Arrived at Desert Trails in Tucson about 1 PM. This is a fairly large park with 240 RV sites and lots of nice landscaping. Got situated, backed into a good spot looking out over the fish pond from our back window. It was a little tight getting backed in, but the obligatory audience said I did a nice job getting it in there.

Nice neighbors and looks like a nice place to spend the winter. Oh yeah - it is sunny and 64 degrees today! We’ll start exploring Tucson tomorrow when traffic is light for the holiday.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Up early this AM, final packing and prepping the house for long term survival (water off, hot water heater off, furnace set, etc., etc.)

Four inches of fresh fluffy snow this AM! Of course I took the snow tires off the smart yesterday when we got home from Christmas dinner (Thanks Julie!), so we tip-toed out to the storage barn on snow covered, slippery roads. Weather forecast looks good for the whole route once we get out of northern IL so we decided to go for it in spite of the snow.

Nancy loaded the last minute stuff into the trailer while I got the truck fired up and loaded the smart. We left Clayton’s barn at 9 AM, right on schedule! Decided to go east towards the city instead of west to I-39 as the road report said the expressways were just wet around the city. 10 miles of snow and slush covered roads in fairly heavy snow to I-88, from there on the roads were just wet except for a 20-30 mile stretch south of Springfield. Took I-88 to I-355 to I-55. Heavy snow squalls with limited visibility until just north of St Louis. Nancy’s comment: “How long can I hold my breath? Apparently about 200 miles!”

We had planned on stopping at Boiling Springs Campground in Dixon, MO., but when we called they said it had snowed there and the steep hill into and out of the campground might be impassable. So we ended up at the little Good Sam campground behind the Country Hearth Inn in Dixon. Arrived just after 6 PM and it is perfectly adequate.

12/27 Back on the road at 9:30 after breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Dry roads most of the day, but the left lane was wet and sloppy most of the way across Oklahoma. Truck, smart, and trailer are seriously dirty! A fair amount of snow in Joplin and Tulsa. We could see that the roads off the interstate were still a mess, particularly in Tulsa.

The campground we had targeted between Tulsa and OK City said they were still snowed in so we went on to OK City and ended up at Rockwell RV Park, a very nice campground on the west side of the city. So we are 50 miles ahead of schedule and we don’t have to fight OK City traffic on Monday morning! OK City is still a mess from the snow. Several place a lane on the interstate would suddenly go away do to piles of plowed snow! Still a fair number of cars in the ditches all the way across OK.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Progress is being made! Most of our clothes are now loaded into the trailer, along with A LOT of other misc. stuff. The weather is looking good for the 26th, so everything is on track. Two or three more trips out to the barn to get everything loaded (it does take multiple trips when you have to haul everything in a smart fortwo!) and we will be on our way a week from today.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Well we are getting ready to head out on our new adventure. After a number of years of vacation type travel we will be heading out after Christmas for three plus months of living in the fifth wheel. It remains to be seen how well we will survive that long together in a little box!

Weather permitting, we will hit the road the day after Christmas heading for Tucson. We will be staying at Desert Trails RV Park during January and February. Plan on doing a lot of hiking and sight seeing since neither of have ever spent time in the Tucson area.

The first of March will find us back on the road headed to Florida. We plan to land at Sun Lake RV Resort in Sun City Center sometime the second week of March. We will visit Dennis's mom and then be off on a week long cruise with the cast of A Prairie Home Companion. If it is anything like the APHC cruise we took to Norway in 2007 it will be a blast. Adding to the fun, Nancy's sister will be joining us on the cruise.

So, we are busy going over check lists, getting the house ready to survive the winter on it's own; trying to remember all of the things we need to take with us; and getting everything loaded into the trailer.

We will try to post a couple of times a week (or more if we find anything really exciting) so come back and see how we are doing.

About Me

We are both retired and embarking on what we hope will be many years of extended traveling.
Our home away from home consists of a 1999 Volvo 610 with a custom deck that carries our 2011 smart fortwo (replacing the 2005 smart that sacrificed itself in the name of driver protection).
Our fifth wheel is a 2005 Newmar Mountain Aire, 37 feet long with three slides. All together we are 60 feet long and weigh just over 37,000 lbs!